What plants can grow in Mountain View, Hawaii (Volcano: house, neighborhood)

[Clays]

I am up at the 2200 ft level and I tried growing mangos and other plants but the stem just gets black and dies. What plants would grow good up here?

[trinity1111]

This is probably the obvious answer, but Orchids grow great.
Also, anthuriums grow to be huge!
Gardenias grow almost by themselves.

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

Can you just drive around your neighborhood and see what people have in their yards? Where I live, we share a lot of plant information and plant cuttings with our neighbors. No need to go to the nursery to buy plants -- we get cuttings from neighbors and stick them in the ground. Best way to find out what others have been successful with.

[respect4pele]

DO you specifically mean fruits and vegetables or any plants?

[Arktikos]

Fruits? Citrus and avocado, for starters.

It's a terrible place for mangoes, far too wet and not enough heat.

2200 ft. is also too high for some ultra tropicals that would otherwise tolerate 200 inches of rain per year, such as mangosteen and durian.

[hotzcatz]

Is it too cold for bananas? They like the wet, not sure about the cold. Sweet potatoes should grow well. Lettuces, if you can protect them from heavy rain. Maybe kale and chard if you can keep the bugs away. Cabbage, maybe, that's a cold crop although it may melt in the rain. Ferns and mosses should grow well, dunno if you want those, though. Mints? Nasturtiums? Are you as far up as Gloomwood? There's a lot of things that will grow fairly well below Hirano store but once you get above it, then they get finicky. Gingers & heliconia should do well, although they can be very invasive.

[terracore]

You can grow bananas at that altitude, but one would need to select a variety that does better in colder temperatures if they want fruit. It would help to grow them close to a house or other structure on the south side where they will be helped by reflected heat.

We grew bananas closer to Volcano at 3200 feet. They grew, albeit slowly, took several years to fruit, and it was spindly and inedible. I don't know what kind they were because they came with the property.

If one gets high enough (in altitude) they can grow stone fruits like peaches, and other non-tropicals like olives. There is at least one commercial olive grower on Maui.

Edited to add- Don't forget RICE. Rice was grown commercially on the BI before it was replaced by sugar.

[Lawrencej013]

GreenGardenGuy1 on YouTube lives in Mountain View, just about all of his videos are on plants. He talks about what he grows